In a variety of different fields and businesses, there is a need for assuring that persons who enter certain areas have sanitized their hands prior to entry. Obvious examples include food preparers and health care workers (although there are other potential examples too numerous to list). An example of a specific need for assuring sanitized hands is the restaurant industry. It has been known for many decades that food preparers, servers and so forth should clean and sanitize their hands prior to handling others' food. This need is self-evident after restaurant employees have been in restrooms/toilets. Bacteria (such as E-coli and fecal matter) in restrooms/toilets, are well known problems and without proper cleaning/sanitization of the hands of restaurant employees the problem can be transmitted to unknowing customers. There is also a need for sanitized hands in private residences. This is especially true of homes with children. Physicians have known for many years that washing one's hands frequently (and especially after use of the bathroom) is a very important factor in minimizing illness.
In the past, restaurants and parents have tried to address the problem by rules and regulations concerning hand washing. For instance, in many restaurants there are signs which state roughly "Employees must wash their hands before leaving." Obviously, methods which require adherence to a rule or policy by human beings are insufficient to assure foolproof compliance. Thus, there is a strong need for a method of assuring that people have sanitized their hands, and, in particular, have done so before entry is allowed into certain areas.
Presently there are both patented and un-patented systems intended to address this problem. These other systems are either not foolproof (i.e., require individual compliance with rules) or are complex and accordingly prohibitively expensive. U.S. Pat. No. 5,670,945, for example, discloses a complex system that has a sanitizing basin with moisture proof switches inside the sanitizing basin and proximity detectors. A person must insert both hands simultaneously into the sanitizing basin in order to initiate the desired output signal. U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,202,666; 4,896,144; 3,967,478; 5,610,589; 4,688,585 and 5,199,188 all involve complex systems containing such things as electronics, sensors, pumps and so forth. Additionally, none of these systems effectively assure that an unintentional improper sanitizing of a worker's hands will be detected.
There is a need for a foolproof, simple and inexpensive method to assure that persons wash their hands before entering sanitary areas. Especially desirable is a system that is simple and inexpensive enough to allow it to be retrofitted into existing bathrooms in commercial and residential locations.